


the light flickers (i flicker back)

by sapphfics



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), Project Libitina
Genre: Gen, goes with the ‘yuri is really the libitina from of the portrait of markhov’ theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 01:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/pseuds/sapphfics
Summary: She never knows when they’ll drag her out for testing, and by this point, she’s stopped fighting them. They hurt Elyssa if she fights them. They hurt everyone if she fights them. ― Yuri, Elyssa and the Portrait of Markov





	the light flickers (i flicker back)

i.

Yuri kills her mother the day she is born, and the doctors never let her forget it.

Sometime she thinks she must’ve died with her, that this camp is some kind of purgatory. They keep her in a tiny cell and she wears itchy sweaters that never quite hide the scars. She hasn’t seen a world beyond this room. She was born in this place and she may die here, but she will not let them take Elyssa.

She can feel everything, everyone who has lived and died here. Yet -

“I just want to look at you,” Yuri whispers one night, when she can feel Elyssa’s hand reaching for her as if she could break through the wall dividing them. “I -“

There is no light in the cell. Yuri decides she must become that light. She does not see the bulbs illuminating the guards outside of the cell shatter. 

ii.

She never knows when they’ll drag her out for testing, and by this point, she’s stopped fighting them. They hurt Elyssa if she fights them. They hurt everyone if she fights them.

The doctors call her Libitina, they’ve named a project after her.

“You’re not like other girls,” One tells her proudly. “You’ve not got an off switch.”

After the tests, she stabs that doctor in the eye and hopes he regrets giving her a knife.

iii.

There’s a tiny hole cut into the door of her cell, where the guards give her scraps of bread and cold soup. The doctors believe the Third Eye alone can sustain her, so she eats as much as she can get.

One time, a guard takes pity on her, tries to give her his key. They cut off his hands and put the stakes out the balcony as a warning to others. She can still hear his screams.

Only Elyssa talks to her anymore and she is almost glad of it. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. She can’t trust anyone else.

The doctor who’s eye she removed smiles as they take her in for testing again. They gave him an eyepatch but no anaesthesia, not because they don’t have it, but because they believe their god will cancel out their pain.

 _I hope your God kills you all,_ she thinks, exultingly.

There are many things hidden within the walls of the camp, things she wishes she didn’t know. A prayer written in a patient's blood. A prayer written in time-devouring snakes with human eyes. A thread connecting all living human eyes.

A thread connecting all living human eyes to her.

iv.

Yuri is there from the time when Elyssa begins screams to the time she stops.

She never figures out what’s wrong, exactly. Irregular heartbeat. Heart palpitations. The doctors have seen this before, wonder if the water has been poisoned by the outsiders.

Doctor Renier moves her to another cell.

She knows he goes to visit Elyssa afterwards because her screaming gets even louder.

Yuri watches Elyssa die and never lets herself forget.

**Author's Note:**

> don’t ask me what this is i’m so sorry sdkjnfsf


End file.
